In a Perfect World
by Mala
Summary: A simple DaveLane fic. A little experimentation with form. A LOT of shmoop...and apparently GG readers at FF.net have no sense of humor, so this description has been edited.


Title: "In a Perfect World" 1/1  
  
Author: Mala  
  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
  
Fandom: "Gilmore Girls"  
  
Rating/Classification: PG, Dave/Lane, angst.  
  
Disclaimer: Amy Sherman-Palladino, not I.  
  
Summary: A simple Dave and Lane fic...albeit with a little style experimentation.  
  
Dedication: For my twinkie, of course.  
  
Elvis Costello is his long-distance driving music. Somewhere along the way, Star's Hollow has become "long distance." He doesn't live that far out of town, but any amount of time away from Lane feels like light years.  
  
He knows all the chords to "Every Day I Write The Book", knows the exact cadence of Elvis's singing voice, can mimic it with perfect accuracy when he's in the car, white-knuckled and clutching the steering wheel as he comes upon the town's infamous stoplight and hopes for no surprise encounters with Mrs. Kim. He sings at the top of his lungs.  
  
Then, when he gets out, and he sees Lane standing in front of the Gilmores' garage...for the first whole minute, he can't say anything at all.  
  
He knows that if he tried to sing, he would be off-key.  
  
And, then, he touches her and slowly begins to tune up.  
  
***  
  
Orange Crush. He remembers the sticky sensation of it on his fingers as it spilled from the bright aluminum can and didn't quite land in his mouth. He got it all over his little Brooks Brothers suit and his parents were mortified because they'd bought it new for his cousin Andrew's wedding. "Open bar," they'd chided the bartender, "does not apply to six-year-olds!" His mother didn't yell at him...just tugged him into the bathroom, wet a paper towel under the faucet, and cleaned off his hands and the damp lapels of his jacket.  
  
The first time his fingertips split open, cut on guitar strings...soon to be the first calluses. He was so proud. Twelve. He wound Band-Aids around each little wound, stubbornly clutched a pick, and ran through "Stairway" until his grandmother pounded on the basement door and told him to quit making so much racket because she couldn't hear Jenny Jones interviewing the transvestites.  
  
Lane.  
  
She's probably what his hands remember the most. She has sunken into his pores. The smooth texture of her skin, the smear of her ultra-practical Chapstick against his thumb. The silky texture of her jet black hair winding around his index finger. The curve of her face fits perfectly into his palm.  
  
***  
  
Conversational Korean sounds nasal and harsh and beautiful blaring from his headphones. Like bluegrass. He's practically bought Berlitz stock just so he can shape his tongue around the syllables as effortlessly as he shapes it around the outline of Lane's mouth.  
  
The King James Bible is open across his knees...he's been instructed to refresh his memory on Paul's letters to the Corinthians before Mrs. Kim's next gathering just so he won't feel too out of place. The only thing that keeps him from really feeling out of place is the familiarity of Lane's Doc Martens pounding down the stairs so she can stand on the third- to-last step and gesture to him over her mother's shoulder.  
  
***  
  
When he was in fourth grade, there was this Korean kid in his class named Johnny Park. Everyone made fun of the fact that he smelled like kim-chee and always poked each other, jockeying around the lunch table, to see what kind of "ew"-worthy foods were packed in his aluminum lunch tin. Lane is soft and always smells like rose soap and Head and Shoulders...nothing frou-frou or perfumed because Mrs. Kim thinks such things are for unchristian loose women...and she tells him, often, that her mother gave up cooking Korean food long ago for such revolutionary things as fake egg salad sandwiches and tofurkey.  
  
She glances around to see if anyone is looking before she wraps her arms around him and he laughs because it tickles when she buries her nose in the hollow of his collarbone and inhales deep. "Mmmm...Old Spice," she teases. "Like my grandfather."  
  
He doesn't tell her that he's practicing being Korean. That he bought three heads of cabbage from Doose's and is teaching himself to make kim-chee from a recipe he found on the Internet.  
  
***  
  
He can play "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and "Nearer My God To Thee" from memory now. His fingers don't cramp on the strings, the fret, and he can hold the notes and warble like he means it.  
  
In his head, the first is "My Goat Knows The Bowling Score"...how Antonio sang it on an episode of "Wings" he saw once as a kid.  
  
In his head, the second is "Nearer My Lane To Thee."  
  
That is, he thinks, why he sounds so devout, so pious.  
  
That is, he thinks, why Mrs. Kim believes him.  
  
***  
  
Elvis Costello is his long-distance driving music. Somewhere along the way, Star's Hollow has become "long distance." He doesn't live that far out of town, but any amount of time away from Lane feels like light years.  
  
(The curve of her face fits perfectly into his palm.)  
  
He knows all the chords to "Every Day I Write The Book", knows the exact cadence of Elvis's singing voice, can mimic it with perfect accuracy when he's in the car, white-knuckled and clutching the steering wheel as he comes upon the town's infamous stoplight and hopes for no surprise encounters with Mrs. Kim. He sings at the top of his lungs.  
  
(The only thing that keeps him from really feeling out of place is the familiarity of Lane's Doc Martens.)  
  
Then, when he gets out, and he sees Lane standing in front of the Gilmores' garage...for the first whole minute, he can't say anything at all.  
  
(It tickles when she buries her nose in the hollow of his collarbone and inhales deep.)  
  
He knows that if he tried to sing, he would be off-key.  
  
And, then, he touches her and slowly begins to tune up.  
  
(And, then, she touches him and there's harmony.)  
  
--end-  
  
March 11, 2003. 


End file.
